After living with it for a year, the Specialized Stumpjumper FSR Expert 650B long term test bike from Enduro-MTB.com has now been returned and so as was agreed when I took over the bike, I have written a final review of it.

The Stumpjumper FSR Carbon model has been my dream bike for years. I lusted after it for a long time before getting one for this test and during the past year it has really lived up to all of the expectations I had for the bike. There is only one problem, in the past 6 months I have also discovered the joys of long travel ebikes, and found that I can go faster, further and charge harder both up and down than on a non ebike, as well as ride up things I never could on the Stumpy. So whilst it’s one of my all time favourite bike I have ever ridden, at the moment I don’t have any plans to buy another bike without pedal assistance! Hey, I come from a Motocross background, perhaps bicycles with motors don’t sit well with some people, but for me they are the most exciting thing to happen to bikes since bubba invented the scrub!

“Since picking it up last July, our long-term test rider Piers has put close to 2,000km on the Specialized Stumpjumper FSR Expert 650B in the mountains around Salzburg. The bike has been challenged with a mixture of steep and rocky trails and flowing single track, with the occasional park day thrown in. Was the Stumpjumper the right choice for his regular 1000m climbs and was it under gunned for the gnarly descents that always followed?”